Press Conference at the U.N. Headquarters
New York, 4th of October 1963
President of the Foreign Press Association in U.S. :
“With deference, we are happy to pay tribute to Your Imperial Majesty, and in so doing, on behalf of many of us, I should like to express our emotion at seeing You in the United Nations. For men of my generation, particularly, brought up in our youth in the cult of freedom and dignity, you already, twenty-eight years ago, were an authentic hero of legends, namely, a man who dedicated his courage and faith to the defence of human rights, be they of His country of anywhere else in the world.
The destiny of Your Imperial Majesty was and still is a great one, and Your presence today in this great home, a distant heir of the League of Nations that was so tragically unjust to You, is one of the very few symbols of poetic justice. But You have seen the immense emancipation of Africa, and it was You who were the first and the greatest inspiration of it. It is, therefore, only fair and just that the forward of African independence be organized and decided upon in Your capital.
We, Sir, are extremely honoured at the visit of Your Imperial Majesty, and we sincerely hope the best for You, Your person and Your country, Sir.”
EMPEROR: “I wish to thank you for your kind words and I trust that all you have said will be found in history. You have repeated it, and I thank you for so doing.”
